Deal
by sovandeprins
Summary: PC/AU He would always find his way back to her. His sweet, dear Tsukiyomi… [Complete]


It was a tale as old as time – a desire between yourself and those you hold dear to forever, and always, _be by their side_. Our **protagonist** of this theatrical _romance_, is no different. A young man, stoic man. _Rugged_ in appearance to some, perhaps – hair that _cascade_ like cataracts across the span of his back and **scars** that mar skin kissed by the sun.  
-_With a heart, spun from __**gold**_.

_She_ is one branch of a different family tree. Carrying an eastern complexion that mimic those of _dolls_ (_**he**__ was the odd one out, it would seem – a foreigner compared to the kin of their community_) – skin, not lacking in their own _blemishes_ and though her cheeks once sat **rosy** and **colorful**: _they no longer held that same quality_. No longer carried _warmth_, as tan fingers come to brush across them.

For within his arms, coddled as though she was a child in need of care, she lay **unmoving**. With lashes _clumped_ _together_ with makeup she never favored in life, dusting the soft skin underneath in **charcoal** **black**.

_**Disease**_ was a terribly _wretched_ thing. One moment, she had carried on with the task of harvesting a field of rice – a _basket_, set against her hip as idle _chatter_ carried on with the other women of the village.  
The next, the **worlds weight** seemed to have come crumbling down upon her – _sweeping her off her feet as though she no longer could carry her own_. That she hit her _head_ in her fall, was only _added_ **tragedy** to an already unfortunate event.

Crops, _spilling_ from their confines as calls for **help** rang clear in _feminine_ _tones_.

Off the beaten path within the woods surrounding their home, **Yaegashi** heard of the incident through a messenger sent to gather him. Leaving the task of setting nets for fish – _something he could always return to at any time_ – the two men would traverse the landscape back to their community.  
-And if he felt _worry_ build within his chest like a **weight** **impossible** **to** **ignore**, then he truly did _not_ _show_ _it_.

Past the flap of the priestess hut, he would find his young **wife** laid _bare_. A rag placed across her forehead, sweat coating her skin like oyster _pearls_ – and as he knelt by her side, a shake took hold of his palms (_fisted and drawing __**blood**__ with blunt nails if he wasn't careful enough about it_.)

_Beads meant for prayer were intertwined within the inky strands of her hair_.

Tsukiyomi had been _unconscious_ for two days straight, awake but **delirious** for one, and _**dead**_ the next. In the span of four days (_though barely, he continued to remind himself – the superstition of the __**number**__ meaningless in regard to her demise_), the woman he had come to see as _his_ _own_, the woman who _he_ had come to **belong** **to**, was ripped from him as though it was the _simplest_ of tasks in this world.

With _paper_ _charms_ covering her **bared** **chest **(_something he knew, deep down, she would've been __**mortified**__ at had she held an awareness beyond mumbled words and rolled back eyes_) – _words he did not know the meaning of spilling past aged lips of priestesses in the darkest of hours_ – she had left the world with one last _breath_.  
One minute she had been with him - the other, _not_.

The _numbness_ within his fingers as he brushed bangs in need of trimming away from her brow, was one that hadn't left him since that fated night. And though he now could keep her within **their** **own** **home** – away from where she met her maker, it did not make matters any better.

She was _dead_. **Gone**.  
_And she would never come back_.

-As he tugged at the neckline of her _kosode_, the pads of his fingers **brushing** over bared skin, the charms he had been instructed _not_ _to_ _remove_ made themselves known.  
Marring skin that already sat _imperfect_ in the most **foreign** of ways, written in tongues he _could not read_.

Their purpose had never been explained to him. When he asked, it had been brushed off – _when pressing for answers, he had been told they were simple charms for her __**health**_.  
That there were so many – up to **twenty** at the _very_ _least_, creating a pattern of a **sun** that reached the point of her bellybutton, to the dip of her collarbones – was what made the _least_ _sense_ to him.

They had done _**nothing**_ for her health, at the end of the day.

On day **three**, she had awoken with a flutter of eyelashes so _subtle_ it had barely been noticed by either woman or husband – _yet her voice traveled distances greater than the __**oceans**__ to once more speak to those dear_.

"_Yaegashi_." She had whispered, her tongue feeling _heavy_ and _**foreign**_ within her mouth. The man that carried said name would move closer to her – _seek to hold her hand within his own_.

Would _speak_ _to_ _her_, in _gentle_ _tones_ that had been **rare** these past days.

"I'm here." Lips _brush_ over her knuckles, so _impossibly_ **cold** to the touch. "_I'm here_, _Tsukiyomi_."

Blue eyes sought their surroundings – to the beams overhead with _planks_ and _straw_ to serve as roofing – to the priestess crouched in the corner, cooking up food for their party to _share_. A _subtle_, **gentle**, rise to her chest that truly felt as though it had been the _only_ _indication_ _of life for days on end_.  
-Once they land on **him**, it's as though they see **past** him – _**beyond him**_, to something else _entirely_.

That she _smiles_, all **teeth** and no true **joy**, is a memory that would come to haunt him.

"No, it's _you_."

**One**: _Confusion_ would fill him at her words. _For they made no true sense_.

"Please don't lie. I can't… _I can't bare that he isn't here_. Don't **lie**."

**Two**: _Worry_, as his hands _tighten_ around hers and his hair comes to fall over his shoulder to _brush_ over her cheeks as he tries to catch her eyes. Catch her **gaze** so that she could see, _could know_, _that he was right _**there**.

Right **here**.

_**With her**_.

"I just want to see him _one_ _more_ _time_…"

**Three**: _Distress_. His palm would come to _cup_ her jaw, steer her face towards **his** as words spill past lips like a mantra for _children_ to repeat.

"_I'm here, I'm here, __**I'm here**_\- _Look at me_, **Tsukiyomi**, I'm _right_ _**h e r e**_."  
-And as her eyes roll back into her head – the whites, _crystal clear and broken_ – he **knows**, deep down, that though _he_ is with **her**: _**she**__**isn't with him**_.

And she _would not be_, beyond this.

Wet lips finds her forehead and _lingers_. A touch of **lovers** who could no longer be together, as his hand spreads at the span of her collarbones and _holds on_.  
-_As though she is a doll to be held and handled in every-which-way_.

That his fingers ends up **pulling** at the papers _plastered_ against her chest in his hold – _that corners bend and removes themselves from her person and a __**hum**__ fills the surrounding area_ – is a matter barely noticed for the man in grief.  
For all that there is, in this moment, is Tsukiyomi. The woman she once was, would come to be, and no longer would grow into.

"_You're __**gone**_," He mouths against her skin, a _lull_ coming over his posture. Like _children_ once more, he sways them like the flowers within a field.  
**Darkness** falls around them, yet he does not see – cannot _feel_ **its** presence.

_For all that there is, in this moment, is __**Tsukiyomi**_.

"I can't believe you're _**gone**_." If it is _repeated_, _then it may not be true_. If he _said it enough_, **then perhaps her limber fingers would find their way back onto his cheeks to hold on as she so often did in life**. A gentle touch of a girl who wished for nothing more but _love_.

"You were supposed to be mine **forever**."

-_**And you weren't**_.

"I promised that **I** would _never_ _leave_ _you_ but… _That was never meant to be so one-sided_."

-_**For he was lonely, broken – and it would never be the same without her**_.

And as his lips finds _hers_, like that of **porcelain** **plates** that lacked any _humanity_, his heart _**breaks**_ for the future now lost.

"… _I would do __**anything**__ to bring you back_."

A _hum_.  
A _**thud**_, _and the world moves around him_. **Darkness** enclosing him, even as his eyes flutter _open_ to view his loved one one last time. Though he _feels_ her against his chest still – _the cold of her skin against his own_ – he can no longer **see** her.

Only a _voice_, _distant_ and **rumbling** in a baritone _**impossible**_ to ignore – _fills the void_.

"…_**A̛͟n͞͝y͘͞t̵̡i̧͏́n̡g̸̕**_?"

When Yaegashi _awoke_, it was in a world of which he **no longer could name**. In a _frame_ that stood _taller_ than it once had; and with _features_ that made a _**mockery**_ of his former self.  
-Locks of _seafoam green_, **markings** where _scars_ once had been; and beneath armor that _should've_ been **unbearably** heavy _yet was not_ – **beastly power** surged _untamed_. _**Wild**_.

He was a man – _could he still name himself as such_? – **lost** in a world _far too large_ to navigate.

… Until, one day, he found **her** once more.

_His __**Tsukiyomi**_.

His name, from then on, became that of **Hoshiyomi**. For his **love** for her would _never_ die, no matter what _time_ – _or what __**life**_ – he found himself within. _She_ was **his**.  
-Just as _he_, was **hers**.


End file.
